(b) Mike Walton is very put upon, having a genuine wish to help real
enthusiasts but prevented from doing more by others (although not
expressly stated, including his staff);


"I don't doubt his wish to help. I might question the rest of the
remark
- he is the manager after all. "


Yes, but T.F.L. ultimately control the purse-strings, which is the
point I think he was making.


"You keep saying TfL dislike the concept of commemoration. They've done

some very strange things then given this apparent dislike. Where do
you
get this view from? "

Well, it's something I suspected anyway but it was confirmed by the
comments that came from Mike Walton, words like "the whole thing has
become so mired in controversy", referring to the 2-day commemoration
and "T.F.L. put a limit on the numbers of models".

(g) It was T.F.L. who forbade firstly a stall at Streatham Bus Garage
and then at Telford Road - ostensibly because of "health and safety"
but in reality because of the point made in (d) above.


"Odd then that there was a stand selling models, books and magazines at

Streatham on Thursday then. If it was banned I don't see how it was
still there by early afternoon - if it was a problem I'm sure the
police
would have closed it down. As for Telford Avenue - well this is an
operational garage on a very busy stretch of road. With the best will
in
the world I cannot see how a stand could be organised there without
there being congestion and accident risks or else disruption to
Arriva's
operations that would ripple across an area of South London thus
inconveniencing a lot of people. "

I was at Streatham on Thursday and didn't see any stall. But, (and I
don't doubt what you say) there was one earlier, I presume it was not
the Museum's stall and may have been established "illegally" and later
closed down by T.F.L. when they found out what was happening. In any
event, would this not have constiuted illegal street trading if no
licence had been obtained?

In the end, given the massive numbers of people outside Brixton Garage,
and the fact that the road was closed for half an hour or longer, I
don't think that a sales stand would have made that much difference.
Memory is a fickle jade, but do I not recall that there were some sales
stands at Barking on 7th April 1979? I certainly bought a commemorative
postal cover there that day.

"I don't doubt the staff have difficult people to deal with but they
could be a damn sight more helpful and pleasant *consistently* than
they
are. "

I agree: I normally have as little verbal contact with them as humanly
possible. Mr. Walton is an exception and he was most apologetic on
Friday for the model debacle, saying "we are a public service after
all".

Marc.